


The Shattering Game

by pharmakon



Series: Steven Universe [10]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fake Character Death, Gem War, Gen, Misunderstandings, Revolution, Secret Identity, Spoilers for Episode: s05e18 A Single Pale Rose, Spoilers for Episode: s05e25 Legs From Here To Homeworld
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-09-22 08:46:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17056595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pharmakon/pseuds/pharmakon
Summary: "Blue!" Rose snapped, but the screen had already disappeared. The news of White's current thoughts jangled like a bad chord in her brain. Destroying the Earth-- all that life, just because some gems were discovering that they could change, too, that they could grow-- "Prove it," Rose echoed, so angry for a moment that she felt like her gem was glowing white-hot. It took another moment for her anger to cool back to worry and then to fear. "How are we supposed to prove it? We can't crush the Crystal Gems! We are the Crystal Gems. And if Homeworld wins more battles against us--"She didn't have to say.*(Or: Rose learns about the possibility of Earth's destruction before it happens. When she fakes her own shattering, it's not Pink Diamond who dies.Too bad she didn't consider the cost of making Rose Quartz a martyr.)





	The Shattering Game

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about this FOREVER, my gosh. Revolution!

Pearl was laughing, absolutely exhilarated, and Rose could have listened to her for ages. "And _Garnet!_ " she was saying, waving her hands about in excitement, "I've never seen the like! She demolished an entire platoon of Amethysts like it was _nothing_ , they didn't even know what hit them!"

"I _did_ like how she threw that boulder at them to stop them fusing," Rose agreed. "So creative with her strategies! Homeworld never sees her coming." She caught Pearl's eye, thrilling at the blue that stole over her cheeks, and added, "They never saw  _you_ coming, either, my Pearl."

"If you keep on calling me that, you'll give me a complex," Pearl said, wry and soft. "My _Diamond_." Rose smiled ruefully at the reminder and shot up into her Diamond form, already chafing at the skinniness, the silly shoes, the sharp-edged placement of her gem. Rose Quartz hadn't been her body for long, but it was a much more comfortable one than her original self. She could be large among smaller gems, bulky like a Quartz, instead of a smaller imitation of her family. She could be _normal_.

Sadly, normal wasn't an option when they were in her palanquin. The rebel leader standing where Pink Diamond lived would raise too many questions that Rose wasn't willing to answer.

"Are there any new messages, Pearl?" she asked, moving to her throne in the center of the room and hopping onto it with a sigh. A few screens popped up around her-- planetary maps, reports of mineral compositions, a file detailing a new batch of Quartzes from the Beta Kindergarten-- and she dismissed them. The last thing she wanted to do after a fight was  _paperwork._ Pearl came up beside her, shimmering her usual dress into existence, and folded her hands neatly. Like a  _proper Pearl,_ ha! Pearl was so much _more_ than that. She always had been.

Pearl, however, seemed to be back in Pearl Mode, and that meant only a minimal amount of giggling and furtive glances. "Not any that I can see," she said, bringing up a few screens of her own, "but-- oh! You have a request for a video conference with Blue Diamond."

Rose sat up straighter, turning to look down at Pearl in surprise. "With _Blue?_ Why? I don't recall anything going wrong recently." She made a face. "Well, nothing  _unexpected_  going wrong.Do you think it's about the Crystal Gems?"

"It's very likely, considering that we just blew up a docking bay," Pearl said, sounding a little disgruntled. "But you'd better take it anyway, I suppose. We wouldn't want her coming here in person  _again._ "

Rose personally wasn't sure that another visit would be so bad. Last time no one had gotten hurt, really, and they'd met Garnet, and Blue had started to see the Crystal Gems as an actual threat. What if another visit was all it took to convince her that Earth wasn't worth the trouble? Then the Crystal Gems could live here safely, written off by Homeworld as too much work to shatter, and she and Pearl could... could...

She hadn't actually thought that far ahead. She'd have to go back to Homeworld as Pink Diamond, if the Rebellion succeeded, and that meant no more Rose Quartz. Maybe Pearl could stay on Earth as a proper renegade, though, with Bismuth and Garnet and everyone else... 

Rose decided to think about it later. "I suppose I'll answer it, then." Pearl sent her the call request without prompting, and Rose accepted it. Blue Diamond appeared on the screen, hood up and standing like she hadn't been expecting a call. She turned in obvious surprise, pulling her hood back, and Rose tried a smile. "Hi, Blue! You wanted to talk to me?"

Blue Diamond stared at her for a moment, then seemed to collect herself and said, "Yes, of course. Let me just find a place to sit for a moment, and we may converse." Rose waited, resisting the urge to fidget, until Blue finally came to her rooms and called up a throne. 

"You wanted to talk to me about something?" Rose repeated. She could see Blue Diamond's Pearl in the corner of the screen, standing at soothing attention as always, and gave her a little wave. Blue Pearl perked up, but didn't risk waving back.

"There's no need to be so impatient, Pink," Blue scolded, but there was an indulgent curl to her lips. "It's nothing too urgent. I just wanted to know how everything was going."

If that was all, Rose thought grouchily, she would have just called up reports like any other gem. But Blue always did like to speak in person. "The colony is progressing well," she said, falling back to proper speech. "We're getting good reports from the southern hemisphere of natural opal deposits that could be harvested for minerals for gem production, and a new batch of Quartz soldiers from the Beta Kindergarten just came out."

Blue smiled warmly. "That's good to hear, Pink," she said, and the worst part was that Rose knew she meant every word. It made it hard to think of her as an intergalactic tyrant, even though that was what she was-- what all of the Diamonds were, Rose included. "Has there been any trouble with those rebels?" 

Rose did the math to figure out what her subordinates would have told a Diamond by now and decided not to mention their most recent attack, since there was no way she could have heard about it yet. "They recently attacked the Prime Kindergarten and destroyed some of the injectors, and in the process managed to convince half a team of Peridots to turn traitor with them." Bismuth's work, mostly. She had a whole speech about creating what you wanted for the cause you followed, and one of the Peridots had had a love of delicate machinery that she was never allowed to explore.

The news made Blue scowl. "You need to get a handle on them, Pink," she said, "before they get too dangerous for you to deal with on your own anymore. If they aren't  _already._ "

The familiar frustration welled up in Rose's chest. "I  _am_ handling them," she snapped. "I'm not incompetent!" Of course, she was much more competent about creating problems for herself as a rebellious alter ego, but it wasn't like the Crystal Gems were _winning_. It shouldn't have appeared like the Earth colony was overrun to anyone. 

"Perhaps you should act like it, then, if you don't want us to question your abilities," Blue said coldly. "I've been considering stepping in myself."

"Don't you dare," Rose said, raising her voice. Sometimes it felt like the only way to make Blue _listen_ to her. "It's _my_ colony. I can deal with the rebels myself."

"You haven't exactly been dealing with them so far," Blue accused, and Rose nearly stomped her foot. "What with letting this Rose Quartz run wild with fusions and renegade Pearls--"

"We drove them away from their last hideout," Rose said hotly, and they  _had,_ she'd been so worried when she'd gotten the news, "and we defeated them in battle just before that, when they tried to trash the Beta Kindergarten! You can't say I haven't been trying!" She scoured her brain for other recent victories, or rather recent defeats, whatever it took to get Blue off her gem. "We even managed to capture a few of their soldiers for intel," she added, and judiciously avoided adding how they'd been broken out just a day later. It was amazing how quickly a Diamond's Pearl could access a prison network and change a few things under the pretense of being a really good hacker. And Pearl was a good hacker as it was, anyway. "I have this under control, Blue."

"All right, if you insist," Blue sighed, backing off for once. Rose felt a thin flood of relief. "But-- perhaps I shouldn't be telling you this, but you know how White is, and I don't want you to be surprised--"

How  _White_ was? Pearl caught Rose's eye and widened her own, and Rose snapped to attention. This could be important. "Blue? What do you mean?"

"I know you don't want us interfering with your authority," Blue said gently, like Rose's  _authority_ was a Pearl she couldn't bear to be parted with, "but White has been considering giving you a new planet, that beautiful ice world in the solar system adjacent to that of Klavius 7, and destroying the Earth before the rebels get too powerful. She seems to think that the rebels could be more of a threat than expected."

If Rose had blood like a human it would have turned to ice. Instead her gem felt cold and stiff in her belly, and she had to fight not to freeze up with it. "She'd destroythe Earth? But it has so many valuable resources!" Humans, for one, and the entirety of the Crystal Gem rebellion, and so much _life_...

"I'm glad that you're so concerned about our empire's resources," Blue said in that same infuriatingly gentle tone. _No, don't be_ proud _of me, listen to me,_ Rose wanted to scream, but she knew from experience that it wouldn't do any good. "But this new world has resources, too, and-- well. You can't expect White not to step in if the Crystal Gems spread too far off-planet. If they made it out to deep space, they could gather forces in all of our galaxies."

_There_ was an idea. "They aren't going to get that far," Rose insisted. "White can't just take my colony away because of a possibility. And if she destroyed it, we'd lose the potential for so many perfect gems-- gems that could have served Homeworld! It just doesn't make sense."

"It does if the alternative is civil war," Blue said. "Think, for once in your life. If this message the rebels have gets out to common gems, and they start to think that they can do whatever they want, the whole order of our society could collapse. Rubies running wild, even Pebbles forgetting their place-- is that what you want?"

Yes. "No, of course not," Rose said, only a little awkwardly. "That would be terrible. But Blue, you have to promise me that you'll talk to White Diamond. Tell her I have everything under control. She doesn't need to destroy anything."

Blue frowned. "Then prove it, Pink. All right? If you can prove it, we'll all know that we can trust in your ability to lead."

"But  _Blue--"_

"I have a meeting starting in less than a minute," Blue Diamond said, cutting her off. "It was enjoyable talking to you."

"Blue!" Rose snapped, but the screen had already disappeared. The news of White's current thoughts jangled like a bad chord in her brain. Destroying the Earth-- all that life, just because some gems were discovering that they could change, too, that they could grow-- "Prove it," Rose echoed, so angry for a moment that she felt like her gem was glowing white-hot, that she wanted to take her sword and poof a whole squadron of Homeworld Citrines. It took another moment for her anger to cool back to worry and then to fear. "How are we supposed to  _prove_ it? We can't crush the Crystal Gems! We  _are_ the Crystal Gems. And if Homeworld wins more battles against us--"

She didn't have to say. The Crystal Gems tried to dissipate forms as often as possible and to make it hard for gems to reform, even though there were inevitably casualties-- but Homeworld had no such reservations, and that included the gems under her command as a Diamond. She could order them not to shatter if they could help it, maybe, but news of that would inevitably make its way back to Blue and Yellow, and they would probably take the Earth from her even more quickly if they thought she was getting more sentimental. Sentimentality was weakness a Diamond couldn't afford.

"My Diamond, maybe we could fake a few defeats?" Pearl suggested tentatively. She started pacing behind Rose's throne, hand to her chin, looking for all the world like a little Earth bird. Rose felt a flush of affection for her that nearly drowned out her worry. "Maybe just with us and Garnet, doing some small raids and letting ourselves be pushed back. We could tell her it's to get Homeworld's guard down for a greater attack, and allow Homeworld to think that they're finally gaining some measure of advantage--"

"But what happens when we  _make_ the greater attack? We can't keep failing or we might ruin morale, and that could ruin the rebellion altogether. And if we keep failing, there's a greater and greater risk that gems on our side could be lost." Rose felt like pacing, too. "Do you think we could make it seem like we're losing more ground than we actually are? Maybe, as some kind of bizarre ambush-- no, that ends with the rebellion winning again. There just aren't many ways we can lose without seriously hurting someone."

"Perhaps some sort of tactical advantage-- oh, I can't think of anything," Pearl said, sighing. "I don't suppose we have a few more years to plan, my Diamond?"

"I don't think this is the kind of thing we should put off," Rose said dryly. Her agitation got the best of her and she stood up, flexing her hands at her sides and wishing she could shapeshift back _properly_. "I just can't think of any way to make it seem like Homeworld's winning that has an outcome we can--" She stopped as an idea started to take form. "That we can... completely control. _Pearl_."

"What is it?" Pearl leaned forward, for once too absorbed to remember to call Rose in this form by her proper title. "Do you have an idea?"

"Do you remember that thing I mentioned to you one time?" Rose asked excitedly. Pearl frowned and opened her mouth, probably to say something like  _you've mentioned many things to me, my Diamond, you'll need to be more specific--_  but Rose beat her to the punch. "That thing I mentioned as a possible way to drive the Diamonds away from Earth?"

Pearl looked alarmed. "I'm not sure faking your assassination is the best way to go here, my Diamond. I can't imagine how that would make them _less_ likely to destroy Earth."

"Not _that_ ," Rose said, laughing. This idea could actually  _work._ "The other way around! Pearl, what if Rose Quartz was dead?"

Pearl opened her mouth, then closed it, eyes wide. When she pulled herself together enough to speak she gasped, "You want to  _kill_ the leader of the Crystal Gems? But that would demoralize everybody, that would-- they'd need a new leader, maybe, and Garnet or Bismuth would have to step up..." The shock on her face fell away and was replaced with contemplation. "And the other Diamonds would certainly think you'd gotten the upper hand then, and it would make our attacks stop while the Crystal Gems regrouped..."

"But they would regroup," Rose said, quieter, more serious. "Wouldn't they? They're all so brave, they'd regroup within a century. Enough time to get Blue and Yellow off our backs, and to keep them small enough that they wouldn't be seen as a legitimate threat. They wouldn't be demoralized forever." A thought struck her, and she faltered. "I... don't know what you would do, though. Keep going back and forth?"

Pearl paused, then stood straighter and shook her head. "No. They would expect me to either have died with you or to want revenge, and I don't think I could keep that up long enough by myself. And if you're making yourself a permanent enemy of the Crystal Gems, I'm not about to leave you to do it alone."

Rose felt like she'd been hit with one of Yellow's lightning bolts, and it wasn't just from the force of her Pearl's devotion. She hadn't realized, but that was true, wasn't it? She'd be giving up all of her friendships, if she went through with this. Garnet, Bismuth, Biggs, little Larimar-- they would all see her as their oppressor. As their  _enemy._ They would never smile at her again. But if she weighed their smiles against their very lives, it wasn't much of a contest. "Are you sure, Pearl? You won't ever be able to fight by their side again. You won't be a renegade anymore."

"I'm about to fake the shattering of a rebel leader to deflect Diamond interest in a growing treasonous movement," Pearl said, looking up into Rose's eyes. "I think that's renegade enough on its own, isn't it?"

"... Yes," Rose said, kneeling down to hug her close. She didn't want to think about how big this was, or how much it would take from her, or how sad it would make all her friends. She only wanted to plan, distant and emotionless like a real Diamond, and let the rocks fall where they would. She could mourn her losses later. "I'd say it is. So how do you think we should do it?"

Pearl wove her tiny fingers into Rose's hair and pressed her gem to Rose's forehead. Such an intimate move, such a  _daring_ move-- Rose almost found herself tearing up over that alone. "First, an assassination attempt," Pearl said softly, so much smarter and braver than Rose could ever be. "And a capture, and then, my Diamond? Then--"

They'd have a  _trial._


End file.
